Random Things That Happen To Your Body When You Fall In Love (12 items)

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  (#5) Your Pupils Dilate

  We've all seen old cartoons where one of the characters falls in love and their eyes grow outsized and pulsing with affection. While that response may be exaggerated, it's not entirely off the mark. According to the Scientific American, "Studies have shown that our pupils dilate wider than normal when we are excited about something and even someone." The reason? It could well be the rush of dopamine that comes with falling in love, which can have an excitatory effect and cause pupil dilation.
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  (#9) Your Sex Drive Spikes

  Obviously, lovemaking in the early stages of a relationship is always heightened and at a different level than it is in more long-term scenarios. But the novelty of intimacy with a new person isn't the only thing driving you and your new love into the sack. When you first fall for someone, the body experiences a spike in appetite. This is probably due to increased testosterone in both men and women in the early stages of love. As one Harvard study put it, "As it turns out, testosterone increases libido in just about everyone." Unfortunately, the libido tends to wane as time goes on.
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  (#11) Your Sense Of Smell Is Affected

  The sense of smell can be a powerful connection to our emotional lives and our storehouses of memory. Smell can also be a prime indicator of true love. The theory of pheromones - chemicals produced by the body that we can detect in one another through smell - has long been debated. In recent years, a DNA-related explanation has been suggested. This theory says that we "are capable of sniffing out certain parts of our potential partners' DNA that make up their immune system... to determine whom we're compatible with."
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  (#12) You Can Die Of A Broken Heart

  While it's certainly not something you want to think about in the early stages of love, it is actually quite possible to die of a broken heart. Clinically, the condition is known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy. When you're in the grip of overwhelming love, or any stressful situation, your brain is raining down all sorts of stress hormones throughout your body, and these hormones can take a toll on the heart. A broken heart might manifest as a heart attack-like event. The good news is that most people with stress-induced cardiomyopathy don't die from it or even experience long-term damage.
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  (#2) Your Heart Physically Races

  While it is, of course, the universal symbol of love, the heart is also having a very literal, physiological experience when you fall in love. A racing heart is one of the first things many people notice when they are developing the warm-fuzzies for someone special. There is a biological basis for this. Adrenaline and norepinephrine released by the brain instigate the primal fight-or-flight response. This is what gives us typical anxiety symptoms like racing hearts and sweaty palms. Love encourages adrenaline and norepinephrine release, so that may not be anxiety you're feeling. You might be in love.
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  (#4) You Feel Sick

  The term lovesick is thrown around a lot, but can you really be sick with love? In a way, yes. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is released in anxiety-provoking situations, and the introduction of new love into your life surely comes with a fair share of anxiety. Cortisol can have a bearing on appetite, making the blood vessels in the stomach tighten and sending blood away from the abdomen. When your appetite goes, it's not uncommon to feel sick to your stomach.

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